The Mwani language, also known by its native name Kimwani, ( ) is a Bantu language spoken on the coast of the

Cabo Delgado Province Cabo Delgado is the northernmost province of Mozambique. It has an area of and a population of 2,320,261 (2017). As well as bordering Mtwara Region in the neighboring country of Tanzania, it borders the provinces of Nampula and Niassa. The r ...

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

, including the

Quirimbas Islands The Quirimbas Islands lie in the Indian Ocean off northeastern Mozambique, close to Pemba, the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado. The archipelago consists of about 32 islands, including Ibo, Matemo, Medjumbe, Quirimba, Metundo, Quisiva ...

. Although it shares high lexical similarity (60%) with Swahili, it is not intelligible with it. It is spoken by around 120,000 people (including 20,000 who use it as their second language). Speakers also use

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

(the official language of

), Swahili and Makhuwa language. ''Kiwibo'', the dialect of the Island of Ibo is the prestige dialect. ''Kimwani'' (sometimes spelled as ''Quimuane'') is also called ''Mwani'' (sometimes spelled as: ''Mwane, Muane'') and ''Ibo''. According to Anthony P. Grant Kimwani of northern

appears to be the result of imperfect shift towards Swahili several centuries ago by speakers of Makonde, and Arends et al. suggest it might turn out to be a Makonde–Swahili

mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that, whereas creoles/pidgin ...

.Arends, Muysken, & Smith (1995), ''Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction''

Name

The name of the language comes from the word "Mwani", meaning "beach". The prefix "Ki" means the language of, so "Kimwani" literally means "language of the beach".

Sounds

''Kimwani'' (similar to Swahili) is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of some verbal paradigms where its use is optional). It does not have the penultimate stress typical of Swahili; it has movable

pitch accent A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...

. Labialization of consonants (indicated by a following the consonant) and palatalization of r (ry; j are frequent.

Nasalization In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internation ...

of vowels occurs only before a nasal consonant n followed by a consonant.

Vowels

''Kimwani'' has five vowel

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s: , , , , and , that is: its vowels are close to those of

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and Hawaiian. It does not have a distinction of closed and

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' ( ...

mid vowels typical of

or French and found in some other Bantu languages like

Lingala Lingala (Ngala) (Lingala: ''Lingála'') is a Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser degree in ...

, Fang, and perhaps Sukuma. The pronunciation of the phoneme /i/ stands between

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

and Vowels are never reduced, regardless of

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

. The vowels are pronounced as follows: * is pronounced like the "a" in ''start'' * is pronounced like the "e" in ''bed'' * is pronounced like the "y" in ''happy'' * is pronounced like the "o" in ''or'' * is pronounced like the "u" in ''Susan''. Kimwani has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each vowel is pronounced separately.

Consonants

Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

consonant, respectively.

Orthography

''Kimwani'' can be spelled in three ways: using orthography similar to Swahili, using a slightly modified spelling system used in Mozambique schools or using a

-based spelling. Here are the differences: {, class="wikitable" , +Kimwani spelling systems differences ! ! Swahili language spelling ! Modified spelling ! Portuguese spelling ! Translation , - !{align="center", , align="center", chala , align="center", cala , align="center", tchala , align="center", finger , - !{align="center", , align="center", juwa , align="center", juwa , align="center", djua , align="center", Sun , - !{align="center", , align="center", kitabu , align="center", kitabu , align="center", quitabo , align="center", book , - !{align="center", , align="center", ng'ombe , align="center", ng'ombe , align="center", ngombe , align="center", cow , - !{align="center", , align="center", nyoka , align="center", nyoka , align="center", nhoca , align="center", snake , - !{align="center", , align="center", fisi , align="center", fisi , align="center", fissi , align="center", hyena , - !{align="center", , align="center", meza , align="center", meza , align="center", mesa , align="center", table , - !{align="center", , align="center", kushanga , align="center", kushanga , align="center", cuxanga , align="center", to admire , - !{align="center", , align="center", wakati , align="center", wakati , align="center", uacate , align="center", time , - !{align="center", , align="center", kipya , align="center", kipya , align="center", quípia , align="center", new , - !{align="center", , align="center", sukili , align="center", sukili , align="center", suquile , align="center", sugar , - !{align="center", , align="center", ufu , align="center", ufu , align="center", ufo , align="center", flour , -

Numbers

moja (1), mbili (2), natu (3), n’né (4), tano (5) sita (6), saba (7), nane (8), kenda (9) kumi (10), kumi na moja (11),kumi na mbili (12) Ishirini (20), thelathini (30), arubaini (40), hamsini (50) sitini (60), sabini (70), themanini (80), tisini (90) mia (100), mia mbili (200) Elfu (1000) elfu mbili (2000)

References

* Petzell, Malin. ''A sketch of Kimwani (a minority language of Mozambique)''; Africa & Asia, #2, pp. 88–110, Göteborg University. 2002. * ''Namuna ya kufifunda kufyoma na kwandika (Manual de transição, língua Kimwani)''; SIL & JUWA; Pemba, Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. 2002. * {{Narrow Bantu languages, E-H Languages of Mozambique Swahili language